Often our view of reality is wrong, born out of the inevitable ignorance of not having enough information to form a realistic view. For example, if someone provides a word of caution: the stairs are slippery, hold onto the rail on the way down. When we hear this we may be inclined to feel as if we’re being treated like…
Center of the universe mental misfiring
Center of the universe bias (perhaps complex?): When you worry about what other people think about what you’re doing, when in reality nobody else has a clue what you are doing because they’re too worried about what you might be thinking of what they’re doing. This explains a lot of life, for example, it’s a common impediment to people joining…
Deciding for other people.
Another bad habit with decision making, is making decisions for other people. For example, telling someone else how to do their job when that individual is perfectly capable of making decisions about how to work. Is your way really the only way to stuff an envelope? Does your rewording of an email really make a difference? Does it matter what…
Visual cues and junk mail
Visual cues are a powerful way to remind ourselves of new habits we’d like to form. For example, if junk mail tends to pile up, put a waste basket or paper shredder where the mail typically accumulates. You might be surprised how often you notice the receptacle and decide to process the mail and purge it right away instead of…
Keep a list of distractions
When working to achieve a goal, distractions will inevitably arise. Keep a pad of paper and a pen nearby, scribble down distractions to get them out of your mind. Then, refocus on the outcome you set out to achieve and then get back to work. This allows you to capture the tangential tapestry of ideas that naturally arise without losing…
Biasing your mind for success
Our minds only have the bandwidth to focus on one goal at a time. This is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is we all wish we could simultaneously keep many things in mind. The blessing is that our mind will latch onto ONE goal if we keep everything else out of the way. And our mind will…
What’s NOT missing when you’re frustrated
I mentioned, last week, frustration is often a sign that something is missing. That something that’s missing is often the piece of information that will liberate your frustration. This is the case with many other afflictive emotions too. What’s NOT missing is blame, fault, intent, personality, and motive. These are further distractions from what is missing because these will only…
Alcohol isn’t the only thing that diminishes self-control
When it comes to making wise decisions, self-control plays a critical role in negating the urge to act in unsavory ways. We’re all aware of the effects of consuming alcohol, it lowers inhibitions, hence why people use it to deal with social situations. But there are many other ways self-control is altered. Ego depletion is an example of a not…
I’m making a decision???
A pernicious peril in decision making is not realizing you’re making a decision. At least this is the case with important decisions. Every day you make countless decisions automatically. That’s normal. Life would be impossible if you had to carefully analyze each and every decision. For example, what to eat for breakfast, when to take a bathroom break, how fast…
It’s not a matter of principle
Yesterday I was getting some numbers ready for my accountant. I was looking up our bills from Time Warner for internet over the last year. I’ve gone through quite the rigmarole this last year with swapping out cable modems, probably 6 times, so there’s a baseline level of frustration just thinking about internet access. In looking at our bill history…